CURE FOR THE EVIL EYE.
(Eòlas a chronachaidh.)
An evil eye, according to the Highland belief, is one animated by a discontented and unhappy mind, full of envy (farmad), covetousness (sanntachadh), and such like mean feelings, and looking repiningly on the good of others, and it may be too earnestly and anxiously on what belongs to oneself. It injures the object on which it falls, and animals or persons struck by it are seized with mysterious ailments, dwindle, and perhaps die.
The believers in the gift assert that the evil eye may exist in man or woman, in friend or foe, and that it is prudent not to give causes for the feelings which give rise to it. Thus, for instance, it is advisable not to allow a cow to go without a full udder. An evil eye may rest upon it, and the animal be lost. The practice is commendable, though the reason assigned may not be the correct one. From a similar fear, a pedlar has been known to go about with his goods only at night. A mother can hurt her own child, and some have been said to hurt their own cattle. The traditions of various localities, in the islands and on the mainland, tell of a man who was not allowed to see his own cattle, from his possession of the unhappy gift. If he did see them, one of the best cows was found dead next day.
When a healthy and thriving child is seized with unaccountable illness, and becomes uneasy and sickly, it is suspected of being struck with the evil eye, and a ‘wise’ woman of the neighbourhood is sent for. She fills a bowl with clean water, into which she puts a silver sixpence. The bowl is then quickly, and dexterously turned upside down. If the sixpence stick to its bottom, the child is the victim of an evil eye (air a chronachadh), and the usual remedy is adopted.
An elder of the church, who was witness to the ceremony some fifty years ago, thus describes it (and he is a person very likely to have been observant even in his boyhood). “When a little boy, I wandered into a neighbour’s house, very likely with a piece of seaweed in my hand, and chewing away at it, as the manner of boys is. There was a child in the house very ill, but I did not think or know of this when I entered. I suppose the little thing had not sucked its mother’s breast, or taken any nourishment, for some days previously. An old woman, who came to inquire for it, on learning its condition, took a bowl half-full of water from a large tub (farmail) that was in the house, and putting it on her knees began to mutter over it. I was too young at the time to be heeded, and was not put out of the house. After muttering for a while, the old woman began to yawn, and such yawning I have never seen in all my days. She yawned, and yawned, and yawned again, till I thought she was going to die. The cat’s paws were dipped in the bowl on her knee, and a red thread, brought by a girl belonging to the house, on being also dipped in the water, was put round the child’s neck.”
The water used must be that in which the “hunter’s feet” have been dipped (uisge casan an t-sealgair), and the cat is the hunter most readily available. The muttered words are the charm, which gives the whole ceremony its efficacy, and the yawning commences when the child’s illness is being transferred to the person who performs the ceremony.
The Evil Eye is deadly to all animals to which the person having it takes a fancy. In the present day it is said of a man in Tiree, who is accused by common report of having the gift, that when he comes to buy a beast it is better to give it to him at his own price than keep it. If he does not get it, the beast is taken ill and perhaps dies soon after. This is said, but the maligned man never gets better bargains than his neighbours.
When a stranger having an evil eye meets a rider or person leading a horse, and praises the animal’s points, the effects of his looks are soon evident. Before he is out of sight the horse is suddenly taken ill and falls down. The rider should immediately return after the evil-eyed stranger, and boldly accuse him of having done the mischief. The more “bitterly and abusively” (gu searbh salach) he does so the better. On coming back he will find the horse all right. If on his guard at the first meeting, when the stranger praises the horse, he will praise it a great deal more. When the stranger says, “That is a good animal,” the prudent owner will say, “It is better than that,” and however high the stranger’s praises are, the owner’s should be higher. This will lessen, perhaps prevent, the power of the evil eye to do mischief.
In the prose part of a Gaelic poem published in M’Kenzie’s Beauties, Gilbride Macintyre, from Ruaig, in Tiree, is said to have killed eighty hens with one glance of his evil eye, and to have wrecked a big ship of five cross-trees, notwithstanding her cables and anchors. A man in Rocky Mound (Cnoc Creagach), in Coll, killed a mare and foal with it. It is said the wife of a former tenant of Heynish, in Tiree (and the story is localised in several other places), would not allow her husband to look at his own fold of cattle. As sure as he did so, one of his best cows was found dead next day. The fear of this calamity made her put a very pretty cow, to which she herself took a great fancy, in an out-of-the-way place, near which her husband had never been observed to go. On returning one day from a stroll in the hill, he asked who put the cow where he had seen it. The wife’s worst fears were realised. The cow was dead in a few days.
The credulous (of whom there is a large number everywhere) were assured that, when any beast belonging to them was praised, all evil consequences were averted by their saying:
“God bless your eye,
A drop of wine about your heart,
The mouse is in the bush,
And the bush is on fire.”[18]
There is a Gaelic saying that “Envy splits the rocks” (sgoiltidh farmad na creagan), and in proof of this the following story is told. An industrious, careful man sold more cheese than his neighbours, and was much envied when seen, as he frequently was, on his way to market with a cheese in a bag on his back. One day, instead of a cheese, he put a small mill-stone in the bag. His neighbours, filled with envy, saw him jogging along as usual to market, and stood in their doors looking after him and making remarks. On reaching the market and opening the bag he found the mill-stone broken in two, a certain proof of the power of envy and of the truth embodied in the proverb.
The charm for curing the Evil Eye, like many other similar mummeries, must be made on Thursday or Sunday. The rhyme used varies with different localities. The following, with slight variations on the part of different individuals, is the one used in Tiree. The words within brackets are omitted when the charm is for a sick beast:
“I will put salve on eye,
The best salve beneath the sun,
[The Son of God made for an angel of heaven]
Throughout the world,
For small eye,
For big eye,
For my own eye,
For the grey man’s eye,
For the eye of the nine slim fairy women,
Who never ate
Or digested aught,
In yonder hill,
Whoever has thee under lock
Of eye, or malice, or envy,
On themselves may it fall,
On their goods, and on their children,
On their juice, and on their fatness,
On their long white ground,
On their choicest herd,
Their white-backed cows,
Their sheep and pointed goats,
Each eye and each envy
That lies on thee, A. B.
In the very centre of the east.
Talkative are folk over thee,
Christ has taken away their likeness,
Twelve eyes before every eye,
Strong is the eye of the Son of God,
Weak is the eye of the unjust.”
The five last lines probably mean, that the fairies or elves, whom God has rendered invisible, are speaking among themselves over the sick person, and the succour of the twelve apostles and of Christ is more powerful than the injustice of man. Others for these lines substitute the following:
“The eye that went over,
And came back,
That reached the bone,
And reached the marrow,
I will lift from off thee
And the King of the Elements will aid me.”
A woman in Islay worked wonderful cures with the following. It is a wretched specimen of superstition, but is given to show how ancient creeds accommodate themselves to modern modes of thought. The ancient charm, instead of being entirely abandoned, became a sort of prayer:
“If eye has blighted,
Three have blessed,
Stronger are the Three that blessed,
Than the eye that blighted;
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;
If aught elfin or worldly has harmed it,
On earth above,
Or in hell beneath,
Do Thou, God of Grace, turn it aside.”
This was to be said thrice.